Recently, the issue of creating carbon polygons has been discussed on the climate agenda. Sometimes it is connected with political moments. Thus, Russia's "green" image suffers greatly due to the alleged large amount of greenhouse gas emissions by industrial enterprises, while the depositing capacity of local natural communities is underestimated. One of the tasks of carbon polygons is to show the objective state of affairs, to prove that our nature provides carbon sequestration in a larger volume than foreign colleagues believe.
A cross-border carbon tax is planned to be introduced in the European Union from 2023. It is assumed that enterprises exporting products and having a significant carbon footprint will be required to pay tax on their products. The amount of tax will be significant and may make the products of enterprises exporting products uncompetitive.
The creation of carbon polygons is a large, ambitious and serious project at the national level. Landfills should create methodological support for studying the carbon balance, calculate the volume and rate of carbon accumulation in various natural communities and develop technologies for monitoring runoff and greenhouse gas emissions on this methodological basis.
How is this problem solved around the globe?
Generally, the idea is very good. The most essential issues seem to be: I) unification in methodology across countries, ii) transparency, iii) adequate representation of the soil diversity in a set of C-polygons giving an opportunity for the regional scaling up of flux data. Point I) is the most important and expensive: modern micrometeorological tools (towers) are pretty expensive and require specific professional skills of personnel.
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